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A boy on the edge of adolescence fears his mother might be a robot; a psychotically depressed woman is entrusted with taking her niece and nephew trick-or-treating; a reluctant dad brings his baby to a coke-fueled party; a teenage boy tries to prevent his mother from putting his estranged father's dogs to sleep. Ranging from a youth arts camp to an aging punk band's reunion tour, from a dystopian future where parents no longer exist to a ferociously independent bookstore, the stories in this collection revolve around the endlessly complex, frequently surreal system that is family.
About the author
Eric Puchner is the author of the story collection
Music Through the Floor, a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award; the novel
Model Home, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction; a second short story collection,
Last Day on Earth; and a second novel,
Dream State. His short stories and personal essays have appeared in
GQ,
Granta,
Tin House, Best American Short Stories, and more. He has received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is an associate professor in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore with his wife, the novelist Katharine Noel, and their two children.
